The neuropsychiatrist was a specialist in mental and neuronal diseases until 1968. Nowadays, this role is divided between neurologists and psychiatrists.

The mental illness specialist

The neuropsychiatrist took care of everything that touched the patients’ brains and their behaviors. Thus, the famous Sigmund Freud, Charcot, Jackson or Bleuler claimed to be “neuropsychiatrists”.

Then, during the XNUMXth century, progress in medicine and chemistry ended up differentiating the two practices. We realize the importance of the nervous system, its functioning, the very particular one of the brain. Brain imaging techniques make it possible to locate which areas of the brain are active according to the behavior of the individual, which allows the emergence of new psychiatric theories.

The division between these different disorders, on the one hand the nervous system and on the other the rest of the body, leads to the separation of neuropsychiatry into two disciplines: neurology and psychiatry.

Thus in France, the separation is recorded in 1968. The neuropsychiatrist became the neurologist and  psychiatrist.

The roles of the two specialties are similar but fundamentally different all the same on certain points.

• Le neurologist deals with the study and treatment of diseases that primarily affect the nervous system. This is the case, among others, of epilepsy, c et brain tumors, Or the Parkinson’s disease. Neurology therefore deals with maladies ou injury clearly visible using tests and measurements using specific devices (MRI type). In addition, neurological disorders do not necessarily have consequences on the behavior of the individual.
• Le psychiatrist takes care of mental illnesses : dissociation disorders (schizophrenia), depression, cognitive disorders, dementias … Psychiatry deals primarily with the problems at the origin of difficulties in living in society : withdrawal into oneself, asociability, crises, anxiety and phobias… She often helps her patients to reintegrate and resume a normal life. Unlike neurology, psychiatry is therefore much more interested in the life of the patient, his family, professional environment, place of life, eating habits, and many others.

These two specialties sometimes come together on certain diseases, when nervous disorders mix with psychiatric disorders. This is the case, among others, of:

• Alzheimer’s “disease”, which affects the nervous system and causes major behavioral disturbances.
• Epilepsy
• Parkinson’s disease, a neurological disorder that causes behavioral problems.
• Strokes, which can damage different areas of the brain.

Many neurologists and psychiatrists plead for a return to a more unified practice, a return to “neuropsychiatry” which would treat the brain as a whole, whatever the medical origin of the ailments.

Abroad

Neuropsychiatry therefore no longer exists in France since 1968, but its English namesake, neuropsychiatry, is still used in UK or United States. It mainly refers to neurology, in the sense that this term refers to the treatment of mental disorders attributed to the nervous system.

En Belgium, the separation was enacted in 1990.